What is a PlayLab?
Multiple researchers have documented (and you may have noticed yourselves) the fact that our youngest two generations (iGen, and Gen Alpha) are suffering from the effects of play deprivation. Children are not engaging in unstructured free play like many of us did growing up and it is changing how these generations develop both socially and cognitively. So what are the effects of play deprivation?
Increased childhood obesity
Increased levels of anxiety, depression, and risk of neuroses later in life
Behavioral adversity in the classroom including increased anger and aggression
Evidence of a “rebound effect” after long periods of sitting which include increased “rough and tumble” behavior inappropriate for the school setting
Decreased sense of local geography, cultural skills, values, and practices
Decreased communication skills and social skills
Some studies report that the effects of play deprivation are seen throughout the lifespan. Effects seen into adulthood include a lower quality of life, decreased income, and increased chance of arrests compared to peers who attended a play based preschool
STEM toys are always available for students to explore.
So what, then is play exactly? That is a harder question to answer than you might think. Each scientific discipline has their own definition of play. Psychology, neurology, sociology, etc. each define play through their own lens. There are, however, five universally agreed upon traits of free play:
Self-chosen and self-directed
Intrinsically motivated (means more valued than ends)
Guided by mental rules that have room for creativity
Imaginative
Conducted in an alert, active, but relatively non-stressed frame of mind
Math and language games are an important aspect of the PlayLab.
So why then are these five traits so important for our children to engage in throughout their neurodevelopment? The benefits of play have been widely documented and the fact that play occurs in a relaxed but alert state means that it places the brain right in the desired sweet spot for learning. Some of the other benefits include:
Assists in dealing with processing external stimulation
Leads to daydreaming, hobbies and games in older children to assist in becoming healthier adolescents and adults
Increases internal and external knowledge and concepts of reality
Increased literary and communication skills including developing and following narratives and vocabulary building
Improved perspective-taking, emotional regulation, conflict resolution, and negotiation
Helps to practice a culture’s skills and values to develop self-motivation and empathy
Switches the brain “on” for learning readiness and motivation
At our school, Excel Christian Academy, we chose to address this issue twofold. By incorporating brain friendly, play based pedagogies in the classroom, we hope to foster a deeper learning experience than traditional “sit and get” teaching. We have also made our Exploration and Innovation Lab (AKA “PlayLab”) a special class along with our other specials like Art, PE, and Music. By allowing students the opportunity to engage in free play activities we can facilitate the social and cognitive development that is best achieved through play. The following is our perpetual lesson plan for our PlayLab and my hope is that this model will be picked up and spread to other schools to take advantage of the benefits of play.
Students engaged in making puppets and completed social skills scenarios with their puppets.
Exploration and Innovation Lab Perpetual Lesson Plan
The E&I Lab (a.k.a. Play Lab) at ECA functions as a special for all K 4-grade 5 classes in addition to some middle school classes. The focus of this special is to promote social-emotional growth through interactive play with classmates. The play encouraged in the E&I Lab includes the five most agreed upon traits of play which are as follows:
Self-chosen and self-directed
Intrinsically motivated (means more valued than ends)
Guided by mental rules that have room for creativity
Imaginative
Conducted in an alert, active, but relatively non-stressed frame of mind
On occasion, specific items, activities or challenges will be featured in the lab but it is always the students’ choice as to whether or not to direct their time and attention to the featured activities.
Benefits/goals of playing in the E&I Lab include but are not limited to the following:
Development of pragmatic language and other social communication skills including such things as turn taking, initiation, negotiation, and conflict resolution
Development of critical thinking skills including problem solving, reasoning, analytical thinking, and adaptability
Life activities and cultural practice
Social emotional learning
Collaboration and cooperative learning
Christian character formation within social contexts
Sensory integration and processing of external stimuli
Students collaborating on creating a Seussian inspired art project.
Classes who come to the E&I Lab more than once per week will be given more concentrated social emotional learning lessons. These lessons may be chosen to address specific issues noticed within the class by the teacher, administration or the neuroeducational specialist. Other formal lessons are designed to be experienced by each class within a particular grade range. Some SEL lessons will take the form of a community circle and are dependent upon the participation of the students involved.
Opportunities are available in the E&I Lab for all students to learn about and exhibit our core values of creativity, excellence, diversity, growth, generosity, and honor. Choices for play and exploration always include the following:
A wide variety of STEM toys and activities
Creative art opportunities (some with sensory components)
Household and daily activity toys and facsimiles
A wide variety of books and other reading materials in both fiction and nonfiction formats
Jigsaw puzzles of varying difficulty
Rules based board games
Learning activities related to geographic and cultural information
